Nonwoven materials are used on a large scale and come into contact with the human skin during use. An important property of this product is a soft, pleasant touch, which imparts to the user the sensation of care and of pleasant use. The products must satisfy high requirements with respect to tolerance and physiological harmlessness. In many cases, it is desired that the products impart to the skin a certain film of skin-care substances, which, in turn, has a softening and smoothing effect on the skin.
The U.S. Pat. No. 4,395,454 discloses an absorbing, bioactive, easily wettable medicinal substrate of nonwoven cellulose material, which contains a bioactive, non-leachable content of 3-(trimethoxysilyl)-propyloctadecyl-dimethylammonium chloride in an amount of 0.15 to about 1.05% by weight, based on the weight of substrate. In addition, the substrate should contain 0.25 to about 1.25% by weight of a wettable, hydrophilic coupling agent, which is an organosilicone terpolymer of the formula ##STR1## and a substantive dye in an effective amount. At the same time, the bioactive, cationic silane, the hydrophilic coupling agent and the dye are to be linked to the fibers of the cellulose substrate in such a manner, that they essentially cannot be leached out.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,282 discloses a tissue paper containing a silicone compound but the inventive polysiloxanes as described in the present application are neither disclosed nor can they be arrived at from this patent.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,545 relates to face towels of at least two layers. These face towels contain 0.1 to about 5% by weight of a silicone with an average molecular weight of about 10,000 or more, the silicone being applied with an aqueous carrier on the layers of the face towel. The face towel, so treated, is to have a smear index of 1.0 or less, a lint reduction index of 5 or more and a sink time of not more than 30 seconds longer than that of the untreated face towel. The smear index is a numerical measure of the smearing of a glass plate when the treated face towel is rubbed on this plate under certain conditions. The lint reduction index is a numerical measure of the decrease in lint formation during use. The sink time indicates the wettability of the treated face towel. For a more detailed description of these concepts and their measurement, reference is made to the U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,545.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 4,950,545, the following are named as silicones:
polydimethylpolysiloxanes, PA1 mixtures of these compounds with polyoxyalkylene polysiloxanes, PA1 organo-modified organo-polysiloxanes.
However, aqueous mixtures of tetraethoxysilanes, dimethyldiethoxysilanes and polyoxyalkylene polysiloxanes are also named. In this connection, the polyoxyalkylene poly-siloxanes are to act as coupling agent for bonding the silanes to the fibers.
Schaeffer, U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,895, describes specific polysiloxanes suitable for finishing textile fibers and products. These products, however, are unable to fulfill all the requirements with respect to the handle and the property of having the skin appear smoother upon use of the towels.